Pummel the Plastic Campaign Blastoff

Science Club with Honors Physics, Honors Research, Honors Biology students launched the Pummel the Plastic Campaign with a bang, with the ping pong vacuum cannon that they built.

The campaign launch included:

1)  knocking a plastic water bottle into a plastic bottle recycling can using the ping pong vacuum cannon
2) 8 bottle recycling cans with individualized "Recycle because..." signs
3) Recycling relay race (Freshmen vs. Seniors) where teams raced to place various trash items into the correct cans.

The campaign includes:

1) Reduce the use of plastic disposable water bottles, by creating reusable Alverno Nalgene bottles with wide mouth and Alverno logo.

2) Address need for clean, cool water by retrofitting existing cooling fountain to a refill station style fountain, and adding a new wall-mounted refill station.

Campus Trash Audit

Honors Biology Students conducted a trash audit of the trashcan and dumpsters.  They found that plastic water bottles, cans, styrofoam, and food waste comprised the most of the trash.
Following the audit, students have made several plans to reduce and recycle.

1) Reduce the use of plastic disposable water bottles, by creating reusable Alverno Nalgene bottles with wide mouth and Alverno logo.

2) Address need for clean, cool water by retrofitting existing cooling fountain to a refill station style fountain, and adding a new wall-mounted refill station.

3) Organize an e-waste collection as a service to the community of Sierra Madre

4) Educate students about the use of recycling cans to make sure that only recyclables go into the blue bins and all other trash, including food waste goes into the trash bins.

5) Encourage the use of reusable plates, cups, and cutlery.

Trash, Recyclables, and Green waste mixed together

Mostly disposable food containers

Honors Bio students document trash in dumpsters

Even the faculty lounge

Coconuts and cream cheese don't belong in the recycle bin

Team auditing

Mr Sifter's trash bins get reviewed

Who left their lunch trash out??

Continua messe senescit ager

AP Environmental Science students cleared the vegetable garden and plant Fava Beans (Vicia faba) as a nitrogen-fixing cover crop to restore the soil for spring and summer planting.

Vicia faba

It is said that Pythagoras, the famous Greek philosopher and mathematician, forbade the eating of fava beans because they contained the souls of the dead

Able Grimmer (Flemish artist, c.1570–c.1619)

Broad beans were a major food of
old Mediterranean civilizations,
particularly for the Romans and Ancient Greeks.

  

Vincent van Gogh -
Peasant woman binding sheaves (after Millet)

  

The Gleaners (Des glaneuses) by Jean-Francois Millet

 Our native plant garden is already starting to show some blooms!

Pale swallowtail, Papilla eurymedon on California Lilacs (Ceanothus spp.)